Issue 23.09

The late Bart Anderson was a storyteller and his favorite stories were of the history of Dixie.  In his honor we will be printing past articles of his that tell the stories of his adopted home.

He had ridden in an ox-wagon, on horseback, by train, automobile, and airplane all within the sight of the St. George temple.  No man knew the old west better, for he lived it.  He was, at the turn of the century, the best-loved man in Utah.  His name was Anthony W. Ivins.  Dixie was his home from 1861.  As a boy of nine, he accompanied his parents to St. George in response to the call of Brigham Young.  In honor of this great man the “benches of Santa Clara” were renamed to Ivins–home of the red mountain.  He lived the west while we only read about it.  The next story was told by him and helps clear up a mystery of one of the worst bad men of Arizona.  The Apache Kid was a plenty bad Indian.  Some of the old-timers will tell you that he was a son of Geronimo.  The kid ripped up the old west when he jumped the Reservation.  An army detachment was finally able to capture the Renegade; only to have the Apache Kid kill the sheriff and deputies while being transported to the Yuma penitentiary.  After, he was a wanted man spending his time hidden in the Sierra Madre mountains, occasionally making raids.  Just before the turn of the century all activities linked to the kid suddenly ceased.  Army reports listed him as dead of tuberculosis.  But “Tony” Ivins tells another story:

“It was 1901 and there were a lot of Apaches in the mountains.  They did not all surrender like Geronimo.  At one time or another they made a lot of trouble for the Mormon colonists.  Two of our young colonists, Harris and Allen, while on the trail in the mountains saw a band of Apaches following the same trail that they were on.  Frightened, they retreated to a high out-cropping of rock where they could peak from.  After a little time they heard hoofs clattering on the rocks and looked up over the rocks to see a couple, of what they thought, were hostile Bucks heading directly toward them.  Both boys were well armed.  They leveled their guns across the rock and fired.  The two Indians fell and their horses ran off.  

Checking the victims, the boys discovered that they had killed one Indian and the bullet that killed him also killed a child that was riding in front of him and that had been hidden by a blanket that was over the man’s shoulder.  The second victim was a woman.  

They buried them and found that the buck had a crescent-shaped piece of silver attached to his turban.  Men who had ridden or knew the Apache Kid, “the terror of the west” swore that the silver piece and turban was his and belonged to no one else.  From that time on no one heard of The Apache Kid.  I believe the boys got him.”

Among the many interesting accounts of the journey down to Dixie during the 1860s, is that of Elizabeth Walker.  In her diary she said: “that when they reached the south end of the Great Salt Lake Valley, the Captain of the company went through all the wagons and threw out everything that he thought the people could get along without, in order to lighten the loads, as the roads to Dixie were much harder to travel than those into the Salt Lake Valley back in 1847.  But, as soon at the Captain’s back was turned they went and gathered most of their possessions up again as they knew that they would need everything they could possibly carry along.”

Quite a number of Swiss emigrants, who were without wagons, were sent on to Dixie upon their arrival in the Salt Lake Valley.

In order to transport them to their destination, they would be met by wagons from one town and taken to the next, where they were transferred again.  On arriving at St. George, most of the other families had lived in their wagon boxes until they could build homes, but since these people had no wagon boxes, they were forced to build wigwams of willows.

“Real troubles began,” wrote one daughter, “when the persistent rains set in and the willows were of no avail.  Uncle John had built a shelter of posts and willows which he plastered inside and out with mud, and he invited us to stay with him until the rain stopped.  We were very crowded but at least we could keep dry.”

The wife of Zadack Judd wrote concerning their travel to Dixie said: “One night there was so much snow we couldn’t start a fire.  We had a heavy hill to get up with our weak team.  Brother Judd drove the cows up first to break the trail and then came back and drove the team up the hill while I blocked the wagon wheels so they could stop and rest.  The wind blew as we neared the top of the hill so that we could hardly see.  It was a great relief when we started down the grade on the south side toward Santa Clara.  An Indian appeared at our camp and we gave him a note to Jacob Hamblin telling him to come to our assistance with two yoke of cattle.”

She went on to say, “At one place several Indians appeared and followed us for a time. Mr. Judd urged on the cows and I urged on the team, keeping close to him.  The Indians began to drop off one by one.  When we came to a bad hill we had to carry up part of our provisions.  The Indians assisted by carrying sacks of flour.  I must say I was surprised to get the flour back again.  On the other side we met Hamblin coming to our assistance.”

These experiences of a few of these Dixie bound wayfarers are typical of the many who crossed the trails south from Salt Lake.  It should be said that only the toughest of pioneers came to Southern Utah, and the toughest of the tough stayed.

In other words weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them.

The chief value of cannon during the “Black Hawk War” must have been psychological.  They were used to raise the morale of the settlers and depress that of the Native American Indians, who could see the danger to themselves of an attack in force sufficiently compact to make cannon effective.  The noise in itself was impressive.  But if the history of this conflict is correct, there is no record of cannon being used in battle.

But what was the Black Hawk War?  By most standards of history, this clash between southern settlers and Native American Indians was a product of hysteria.  There was a war, at the cost of over one million dollars and the loss of human life, but both pioneers and Indians over-reacted to stories that seemed to grow by each teller.  

This dispute happened between 1866-1875.  As stated, there were field guns that were displayed, but never used.  The personal history of William James McAllister records references to such cannon.  McAllister gained varied experiences which helped him later become a militia artilleryman.  He with 150 other young men received a “call” from Brigham Young to “help fill up the Dixie settlement.” 

In St. George 1869, he fell in love with a young lady.  In the company with President Eratus Snow, they traveled that fall to Salt Lake City where they married.  Returning they drove through Sanpete County.  At Fort Ephraim they watched a drill in which militia artillerymen “handled a field gun.”  Erastus told young McAllister he would like the same kind of a unit in his brigade in Dixie.  He called on McAllister to “mount a cannon and drill the company.” 

Back in St. George, they located an old cannon that had somehow made its way there from the Pacific Coast.  With aid from blacksmith McAllister, they contrived a limber or forepart of a gun carriage, the part which supports the ammunition chest.  Then, the cannon wheels were removed from beneath and the cannon itself was mounted upon the wagon.  It was a sort of “War Wagon.”  Versatile McAllister also drilled a company in “artillery tactics.”  Erastus Snow organized 18 men in the artillery company.  David Millin, a man about 45 years old, was made captain over the unit.  They drilled and within six weeks, this unit became a uniformed group able to handle this new gun. 

He was hearing a myriad of sounds…voices, murmurs and whispers, but there was no one around.  The next story comes from the 1870s.  This was the time that large timbers were being freighted from Mount Trumbull to St. George for use in the building the Temple.  Over one million feet of lumber was hauled 70 miles, over rough road, to Utah’s Dixie.  William Perkins, one of these freighters, told this next classic tale.

“It was in the Autumn of 1876, the wagons had been rolling in from Mount Trumbull for the past year.  Work had progressed very well but a long fall storm had delayed the ox teams for over a week.  It had been thought that such a delay would have little effect on the progress of Temple work.  It was discovered that certain large timbers should have been delivered but through an oversight, they were still out at the mountain.  If these timbers were not delivered by the weekend, it would cause a delay in the construction.

Monday evening found Billy Perkins and Tobe Whitmore, a day out of St. George on their return to Mount Trumbull.  That evening a man rode into camp, he was being sent out to the logging site to hurry the shipment of these special timbers.  That night sitting around the campfire one of them said, “the Temple foreman ought to be praying that the freight outfits were already rolling!”  Everyone said Amen to that suggestion.  The men retired early to be fit for the next day’s labor.

The next morning, the men all arose before the dawn to take care of the animals and get ready to go.  The horseman, by riding long and hard, with luck would make it through the day.  Suddenly, someone said,” did you hear that?”  All had, it was the crack of a bull whip and soft sounds of men talking.  Then, they heard it again loud and clear.  They knew that the ox team was bringing the special timbers in.  The horseman turned around and went back to St. George to report all was well.

Bill and Tobe drove on expecting to see the oncoming freight teams on each turn, but the day passed and they met no one.  The next day was the same, they met no one.  By mid-morning of the third day, they spotted the long sought after wagon.  On talking with the drivers it was learned that they had left Mount Trumbull 3 days before, just as Bill, Tobe and the horseman had heard.

What kind of phenomenon was it that voices carried sixty miles?  That is what happened, a crack of the whip, a creak of the wagons, and voices heard a full 60 miles.  To most, it was just good planning that the work did not stop.  To Bill and Tobe, and those that prayed that night, they had seen a bit of the Lord at work that crisp Autumn morning a hundred years ago.”  The Arizona Strip, strange and forbidding, is a place where a full roar is absolute silence. 

The late Bart Anderson was a storyteller and his favorite stories were of the history of Dixie.  In his honor we will be printing past articles of his that tell the stories of his adopted home.

It was on Thursday, December 30, 1915, more than 7,000 people had gathered in Denver to witness the “Great Houdini.”  Two policemen meet Harry Houdini on special platform, high above the crowd that had been erected for the occasion.  Officers then cuffed the hands while Houdini was strapped into a straitjacket.  Harry asked the two detectives to let him down in fifteen minutes if he not freed himself.

When the jacket was cinched as tight as the lawmen could pull it, a huge crane’s line was lowered from the top of the building.  Houdini’s feet were coupled to its hook end.  With a jerk, the stuntman went flying some thirty feet into the air, swinging above the pavement.

Being a showman, nothing happened.  The upside man didn’t move.  Was it an act?  Had he meet his challenge?  Then, as the audience gasped, high above, he began to gyrate.  The hung man commenced to thrash and twist.  Like a banana skin, the straitjacket rolled off.  It fluttered to the ground as the crowd cheered.  Houdini had made another escape.

What has Houdini to do with the folklore of Southern Utah?  Well, uniquely, we had our own comical escape artist.  His name was Burnmeister.  He was one of the many transplants, being a Swede, that was living in Silver Reef during its wild years.  He had a drinking problem.  It was during one of these drinking and fighting periods, that Burnmeister was arrested and taken to St. George.  Sheriff Hardy had him placed in jail, which was in the basement of the old courthouse.  To start with he was placed in the middle basement cell which was locked tight.  But within hours he was seen walking the streets of St. George.

Sheriff Gus then captured the Swede.  This time he was placed in the “dark cell,” which was maximum security.  Again, as at first, within a short time, Burnmeister was out again.  Now, this time, Gus Hardy was mad and with his son, Ernest, got a large iron cage which was placed in the middle of the courthouse basement.  The Swede was again captured and then shackled, both hands and feet to the cage.  All doors to the building were locked.  The sheriff damned Brunmeister as the prisoner said, “I’ll be over for breakfast.”

Next morning at 7:00 am there was a knock on the sheriff’s door, and there stood the prisoner.  He was given breakfast and then turned lose.  I guess Hardy learned that this was one man he could not lock up.

Freedom departs when we are no longer worthy of possessing it.

The southern apex of the Kaibab Plateau is within the boundaries of the Grand Canyon National Park . The Native Indian word “Kaibab” means “Mountain Lying Down.”  Some 30 miles south of Jacob Lake on Arizona Road 67 is the boundaries of the Grand Canyon.  This road winds though ponderosa pines with periodical green meadows.  If you didn’t know you were in the Arizona, one would think that they were in the northern forests of Alaska.  The Grand Canyon is open from May 15 to October 16, depending on the weather.

During the Dixie summers, the North Rim is a great place to take a hike.  The “Ken Partrick Trail” is a favorite.  The trail starts from Point Imperial the trail winds some 3 miles along the rim to Cape Royal Road.  From here the trail moves into the forest area for the next seven miles.  With the rim section this makes the trail about 10 miles long.

The trail, like any other in our area, has a lot of ups and downs.  I would consider it as a moderate to arduous.  You will need 6 hours to hike the entire one way.  But, don’t let me scare you away, for there are many access points along the trail which will make your hike much shorter.  These access points are well marked along the drive from Point Imperial to Cape Royal.  Even though this area is high elevation and cool, always bring a couple of quarts of water along.

In the history of Southern Utah and Southern Nevada, Daniel Bonelli should be listed among the greatest men who made history in the Southlands.  Bonelli, a Swiss emigrant, had joined the Mormon Church in Europe.  He crossed the plains to Utah and suffered the trials of those early Swiss pioneers.  In Brigham Young’s expansion south, Bonelli was an early recruit and leader among the Swiss pioneers to Santa Clara.  He was with Jacob Hamblin at Fort Clara and like Hamblin lost most of his worldly possessions in the great flood of 1862.

Trouble seemed to follow him, for at Beaver Dam, he was washed out again.  Next he went further south on the “Muddy River” (Overton, Nevada) where he started all over again.  

Daniel was an educated man, he spoke several languages, along with being a carpenter-cabinet maker.  It was during the late 1860s that the new State of Nevada put so much tax on the Mormon settler that many of them left the area.  Daniel Bonelli voted to stay on.  At this point in his life, Daniel, became slightly indifferent toward the Mormon Church, saying, “the Church left him.”  He set up a small town called Rioville at the junction of the Virgin River and Colorado River.  With gold being found in Northern Arizona, Bonelli set up a successful ferry across the river, this to accommodate a host of new travelers.

It was Daniel that helped Major Powell on his second trip looking for his lost three men.  These were later found to have been killed by renegade Indians.  The aid to Powell was supposed to have been repaid by naming the Virgin Mountain the Bonelli Mountains.  But that didn’t happen.  Bonelli just got a small peak named after him, and he would often say, “those mountains should have had my name!”

Some say that Bonelli was a little eccentric and all agreed he hated getting old.  One day a young man walked up to him and asked, “Old Man, how far is it to the river crossing?”  Bonelli looked him up and down and said, “three miles and if you call me old man again I’ll throw you all the way to that crossing.”

One of his most particular quirks was in his butter.  Salt was plentiful in that area in pioneer days but Daniel never used salt.  Mrs. Bonelli always made salt-free butter for him, saying “he owned more salt than any man in the southwest and he ought to use just a little.”

Being a good business operator, he often made trips to Pioche for supplies to sell, and it was 1904 that he suffered a stroke during some transactions in Pioche.  A few moths later he passed away.

Today there is little evidence that Daniel Bonelli ever lived in Santa Clara as a founding father, or that Southern was ever touched by this man, only a lone street in Overton bears his name.

On August 6, 1904, five or six wagon-loads of citizens gathered on the Hurricane Bench to witness a dirty stream of water pour life onto the desert soil of southwestern Utah.  The event marked the culmination of eleven years of tedious manual labor by some of the remnants of Brigham Young’s Cotton Mission colonizers (these were members of the Mormon Church whom President Young sent to southern Utah to grow cotton).  Beginning in the early 1860s these religious settlers inhabited tiny plots of land along the upper Virgin River Basin.  They relied upon the river for daily sustenance, yet it often betrayed them with angry tantrums that left their dams, ditches, and crops in chaos.  Many colonizers relocated in search of better conditions.  Those who remained also sought ways to improve their lives.

In 1893 nearly a hundred men from the basin communities met to incorporate the Hurricane Canal Company in the hope of bringing water to the desirable lands of the Hurricane Bench.

Two previous surveys deemed the project impossible, and even the surveyor hired to map the ditch was pessimistic.  He fore saw the immense amount of labor and money the canal would require and did not believe the impoverished settlers could finish it.  Nevertheless, stockholders soon began construction of the nearly seven-mile-long canal.  Workers laboriously hefted food, tools, bedding, and an anvil to the dam site at the bottom of a narrow gorge.  The canal clung to the steep hillsides and ledges of the Hurricane Hill, making horses and plows impossible tools.  Instead, the shovel, pick, crowbar, wheelbarrow, and hand-driven drill carved the ditch out of the canyon wall.  At times the workers had to hang men down from ledges to reach the ditch, but rock blasting proved even more challenging.  

Thomas Isom remembers picking dynamite out of “many a hole which misfired.”  He explained, “We had to do this, dangerous as it was; we could not afford to lose a single stick.”

Work continued slowly, only progressing significantly during winter months when men and older boys could leave their farms in care of their families.  As labor on the canal continued unrewarded many became discouraged and sold or forfeited their stock.  By 1901 the canal company had expended nearly $50,000 in labor; those still involved were not willing to waste such efforts.  Although their previous requests for help had been rejected, the canal board and George Jepson again turned to the Mormon Church for rescue.  In 1902 the board assigned James Jepson to travel to Salt Lake City and meet with Mormon President Joseph F. Smith.  The meeting proved fruitful, as the church agreed to purchase $5,000 stock in the company.  With this boost workers came scurrying back to the project and pushed the canal to completion.

In August of 1904, after the company was organized in December 1893, water was flowing onto the flat fields.  In 1906 the first residents of the new town called Hurricane arrived below.  Over the next two decades a near flood of settlers poured onto the bench eager to partake of the new land and economic opportunities the canal made possible.

We take our hats off to some of the greatest pioneers of Dixie.  The Utah State Historical Society helped provide information about this project.

In 1859, Moses Harris led a small band of Mormon settlers to where Quail Lake now stands.  Although farmers there depended upon the meager flow of Quail and Cottonwood creeks, the settlement grew rapidly, and had a population of 240 people by 1866.  A church was built and there was a school attended by 60 students.  This school was named the “Cedar Post School House,” due to the fact that it was made of cedar post instead of being built of logs or stone.  The town was first called “Harrisville” or “Cottonwood,” but was later called Harrisburg.

Harrisburg became a favorite stopping place for wagon trains bound for California, and the fame of its vineyards and orchard was carried west by them.  The town’s population peaked in 1869.  That year a plague of grasshoppers and range-fires destroyed its crops.

By the 1880s people of the town had sold their water rights to the town of Silver Reef for the mines.  By 1890 Harrisburg had only 14 residents.  Many folklore stories record of ghost appearances during the early 1900s.

Between Harrisburg and St. George were Morristown and Middleton.  Morristown is the area known as the Washington Fields.  This community like the delicate Sego Lily, bloomed only briefly.

Middleton’s most exciting day came in 1878.  Ben Pollack had been warned that a band of “notorious horse thieves” were going steal livestock.  Pollack, with Sheriff A. P. Hardy and two deputies, was hidden near his corral that night in September when three men approached in the darkness.

Sheriff Hardy yelled “Throw up your hands!”  Gunfire erupted, and when the shooting was over, two rustlers lay on the ground seriously wounded.

Eventually, two of the outlaws were turned over to Pioche Nevada law-men, for Nevada had first warrants for their arrest.

The transfer of prisoners was to happen on the foothills of Pine Valley Mountain.  Sheriff Hardy turned over the two horse thieves and watched them ride away.  Within a short time Sheriff Hardy heard gunfire and rode to the scene.  The bodies of both men were found by the side of the trail which led in the direction of Pioche, still wearing leg-irons and shot through the head.  The two Pioche law-men were never seen again.  It wasn’t healthy to be a horse thief in Dixie.

A woman on the opposite side of the law than Annie Oakley was Belle Starr, famous Wild West Woman.  Myra Belle Smiley Starr, was born in 1848, in Carthage, MO.  She was well educated and excelled at many school subjects.  Her father was a wealthy innkeeper and her mother was related to the Hatfield clan of the famous Hatfield and McCoy feud.

As a teenager, Belle reported the Union troop locations to the Confederates.  When the Union burned Carthage to the ground, the family moved to Texas.  Belle had been friends with Cole Younger who joined up with Frank and Jesse James whose gang often hid out at the Smiley farm.  Their influence fueled Belle’s enthusiasm for outlaw ways.

In 1866, she married Jim Reed and had a daughter and a son.  When Jim shot and killed a man who had accidentally killed his younger brother, the family had to flee and hide in California.  Within a few years, he was robbing and passing counterfeit money.  Belle was supposedly his accomplice.  Again the two went into hiding with Belle going to Dallas, Texas.

It was here that her reputation for lawlessness flourished.  She was living off the robbery money and wore buckskins, velvet skirts, and a Stetson hat with a plume and she wore two pistols.  She hung out in saloons and played cards and dice games.  She was known to ride her horse in the town’s streets shooting her pistols into the air.

Jim was killed in 1874 trying to escape from a sheriff.  Belle gave her children to her family and left for Indian Territory in Oklahoma where she continued her lawless ways.  She bribed the local officials to look the other way for her rustling enterprises.  In 1880, she married Sam Starr.

Judge Parker, the Hanging Judge, wanted desperately to catch Belle in her criminal activities.  He finally was able to sentence her to nine months in jail.  She was a model prisoner and when released, she went back to her old ways.

She faced several charges of robbery but was not convicted.  Sam Starr was killed by a family enemy.

Belle died just days before her 41st birthday on 3 February 1889 when she was shot in the back while riding her horse.  No one was ever charged with her murder but the suspects included Edgar Watson with whom she feuded over land, her lover Cherokee Indian Jim July and her own son, Ed.

Belle, a legend in her own time, continued to be famous with the making of several movies concerning her lawless life.